When it's time to take on a Gigantronic with the Beast Racer Zord, there's one mighty weapon that's sure to do the trick. To destroy these viral villains the Red Ranger can call on the Cheetah Beast Blaster for one powerful attack! And now thanks to Hasbro you can call on the power of this mighty power up to take on your friends with the NERF Cheetah Beast Blaster!

I'd also like to mention that this item was provided to me totally for FREE, from Hasbro directly. Their generous Beast Morphers Product Mailer, which I broke down in an unboxing gallery a couple weeks ago, arrived for us to review and I'm more than happy to share each and every item from that box with the community. The Cheetah Beast Blaster is yet another wonderful gift from the fine folks at Hasbro.

Packaging
The Cheetah Beast Blaster comes in an open style box, similar to many roleplay items that the Power Rangers toyline has featured over the decades. This is also most similar to the style of packaging that most lower price point NERF blasters come in. So devoid of it's Power Rangers connection, this blaster will fit right into a NERF collection at the very least. The box also features more of that stellar character artwork we've come to know the Beast Morphers line for. It's a really wonderful profile of the Red Ranger holding the Beast Blaster.

Main Item
As with most any roleplay weapon made for the Power Rangers toyline, this one very much is made with the show's younger fans in mind. It's sized very much for the age range it's designed for, ages 8+. But I'm happy to say if you're an adult fan of Power Rangers or NERF blasters in general, it's a pretty great size for you as well.

The Cheetah Beast Blaster comes packaged in it's Cheetah Mode first. On it's own, the Cheetah Mode is a pretty decent new stylized take on the general cheetah theme that the Red Buster/Red Beast Morpher has had. The original creations that the Power Rangers series comes up with versus it's sentai originator can often feel a bit tacked on and don't necessarily fit in with the theme of the series. But the Beast Blaster really does feel like a genuine member of this design family. While the cheetah mode doesn't offer much in the way of functionality, it's a really nice static display piece to compliment either your Beast Racer Zord action figure, or your 6" Basic Red Ranger.

The great thing about this toy is that it transforms in a really fun way to Blaster Mode. To get there you first need to rotate the rear legs back. Doing so folds them out enough to make a handle for blaster mode, and reveals the trigger. While certainly sized with child hands in mind, the grip is large enough to accommodate plenty of adult sized hands as well. Making it a great RP toy to me personally. To get to the next step you need to press down the large silver button on the cheetah thigh, this unlocks the rotation in the Cheetah's main body, allowing it to spin up and around so that the front legs wind up slung over the head. The legs also act as holsters for two extra darts so this makes for really smart storage. When the torso is rotated this also automatically opens up the cheetah mouth, showing the barrel to load a single dart in. In order to fire a dart, you need to pull back the Cheetah's tail until it locks in place. Now just pull the trigger, making sure you're at a safe distance, and you're good to go!

This things fires dart pretty hard and fast, so just play carefully as you should at any point when using a toy that fires projectiles. Don't for anyone's eyes, and don't be malicious. This is a fun toy that I think fans of all ages can have fun with. And seeing that we have an evil sort of Red Ranger as well this year in Blaze, I'd love to see a dark red and black repaint of this thing to go with him. His 6" basic figure comes with one so it only makes sense to me. And as long as we're getting original weapons, and NERF ones at that which is a first for Power Rangers, then I'd love to see some NERF swords & shields.

Accessories
As with any good NERF blaster worth it's salt, this one comes with 3 blue darts. These soft foam flexible darts have a slightly more firm soft rubber tip. If you fire this thing at a hard surface it makes quite the satisfying impact sound. And given that the Beast Blaster also fires them quite forcefully, this thing is a pretty powerful roleplay toy. Be careful when loading the darts as it takes a fare bit of pressure to get them in, you may wind up bending or breaking them by mistake.

Final Thoughts
When Hasbro took on the Power Rangers license, their involvement was bound to introduce some really new concepts to both the TV show and toyline. One thing I just never expected even though it's obvious in hindsight, is that this deal opened the door for NERF products to be involved. Stylized, fun, action oriented roleplay weapons for Power Rangers are a must. And with the NERF design philosophies, it really opens the door on possibilities. Imagine a NERF MMPR Red Power Sword. Or perhaps NERF Blaster SPD Delta Blasters. The possibilities really are endless. The Cheetah Beast Blaster is just a taste of what's to come. "It's NERF or or nothin'!"

I wasn't entirely surprised when new weapons were apparently added to the Power Rangers adaptation, since I was under the impression that toy sales had been a problem for Go-Busters. I'm actually a little surprised it wasn't a complete overhaul. The toy here is cute, but is a pretty different aesthetic than the other Go-Busters/Grid Battleforce stuff.